THE GRUDGE (2020) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

THE GRUDGE (2020) movie

Genre              |   Horror

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   94 minutes

Released         |   30 January 2020

cast

Andrea Riseborough ... Detective Muldoon
Tara Westwood ... Fiona Landers
David Lawrence Brown ... Sam Landers
Zoe Fish ... Melinda Landers
Junko Bailey ... Kayako Ghost
Demián Bichir ... Goodman
John Cho ... Peter Spencer
Betty Gilpin ... Nina Spencer
Lin Shaye ... Faith Matheson
​Jacki Weaver ... Lorna Moody

director

​​Nicolas Pesce

writer

​Nicolas Pesce ... (screenplay by)
 
Nicolas Pesce ... (story by) and
Jeff Buhler ... (story by)
 
Takashi Shimizu ... (original screenplay)

cinematographer

 ​​Zack Galler

music

​The Newton Brothers

film editor

​Ken Blackwell
Gardner Gould

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box office result

Worldwide               $50 million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

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movie minutiae

The original plan was to reboot the series completely, featuring a new storyline that abandons the Saeki family. However, it was confirmed in an interview with Nicholas Pesce that the film takes place during the events of THE GRUDGE (2004) and THE GRUDGE 2 (2006).

This will be the first American Grudge film not to have any involvement with Takashi Shimizu, who directed the original 4 JU-ON films and the two American remakes. Although he did not direct THE GRUDGE 3 (2009) he did remain as a producer.

The house's number in the film is 44, a reference to the original JU-ON short film 4444444444 (1998). 4 is also a number of bad luck in Japanese culture due to the number in Japanese specifically being a homophone for the character Shi, which means death.

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THE GRUDGE (2020) MOVIE IMAGES

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THE GRUDGE (2020) STORY SYNOPSIS

​After a young mother murders her family in her own house, a single mother and detective tries to investigate and solve the case. Later, she discovers the house is cursed by a vengeful ghost that dooms those who enter it with a violent death.

THE GRUDGE (2020) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 30 January 2020

Pop ​Movee Rating

Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, J-Horror (the ‘J’ being short for Japanese) was a thing! Movies like RING (1998), AUDITION (1998), KAIRO (2001) and DARK WATER (2002) were among the best released during this period and established Japanese Horror films as a legitimate alternative to American Horror, which was still consumed by a fascination with serial killers and was well down the path to the “torture porn” that emerged in the genre not long after the start of the 21st Century.

Among the more popular J-Horror releases was JU-ON, otherwise known as THE GRUDGE. Released in 2002, THE GRUDGE  was made by Takashi Shimizu and was the third JU-ON film, but was the first to be released theatrically. The two prior entries had been released direct-to-video. 

The film’s story is about a family murdered by their patriarch. The heinous act revives an ancient curse and the man’s murdered wife returns as a vengeful ghost to, in turn, murder him. Anyone who enters the family’s home thereafter is also marked by the curse and, ultimately, dies, pursued by the ghost of Kayako.

THE GRUDGE was remade for Western audiences in 2004.

Unlike many J-Horror films that were remade for Western audiences during this period, Shimizu also directed the 2004 version starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. The story remained largely faithful to the Japanese film but its ending was altered. A sequel, also directed by Shimizu, was released in 2006. The series petered out after the 2006 film, as Horror audience fascination with Japanese-inspired poltergeists was replaced with the aforementioned “torture porn” sub-genre brought to the mainstream by the likes of the SAW franchise.

(Ironically, James Wan, who brought the SAW series to life, modelled his later CONJURING Universe films on the supernatural, ghost stories that were central to the success of J-Horror.)

Jump forward fourteen years and this week sees the release of another Western/American version of THE GRUDGE, written & directed this time around by Nicolas Pesce, best known for the moderately-regarded 2016 Horror Drama THE EYES OF MY MOTHER.

The first point that should be made about the 2020 version of THE GRUDGE is that it’s a completely unnecessary film. There is no obvious need or want for yet another interpretation of this story. 

It’s fair to assume THE GRUDGE has been made on a moderate budget and seeks to emulate the success Blumhouse Productions have had in making Horror movies for a few million dollars, coming up with innovative marketing campaigns, scheduling the film during a lull in the cinema cycle and cleaning up with a $30 million plus North American Box Office result. Grosses in foreign markets are a bonus and the home entertainment market guarantees a longer-term income stream.

This has not been lost on THE GRUDGE international film’s rights owner and distributor, Sony.

Production values on THE GRUDGE seem a little higher than the standard Blumhouse release, but there’s not nearly the same level of story simplicity or clarity in Pesce’s finished product.

THE GRUDGE fails to overcome Pesce’s decision to present the finished film in a series of layered flashbacks; emulating the original series of films. The choice to tell the story in a non-linear manner may have seemed like a “creative compliment” to Takashi Shimizu in the editing suite and Pesce must have been convinced by experienced Editors Ken Blackwell and Gardner Gould that it would all turn out great.

Imitation may be the best form of flattery, but producing a facsimile of somebody else’s work is not very creative.

The story opens sometime in 2004. Fiona Landers (Tara Westwood) inexplicably deserts her work in Japan to return home to Cross River, Pennsylvania. Upon her arrival, she’s greeted warmly by her husband Sam (Dave Brown) and young daughter Melinda (Zoe Fish). 

The story jumps to 2006. Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough), along with her son Burke (John Hansen), has moved to Cross River after the death of her husband. Muldoon is a Police Detective and quickly becomes involved in a case that leads back to events that engulfed the Landers family soon after Fiona’s return from Japan two years before.

The story bounces back and forth between multiple characters, including Demina Bichir’s Police Detective Goodman, Muldoon’s new partner; Horror film icon Lin Shaye as the mentally-tormented Faith Matheson; John Cho as the world’s unluckiest Real Estate Agent Peter Spencer and Jackie Weaver as Lorna Moody, another unfortunate bystander whose generous offer to help turns out to be a curse she can’t escape.

The film’s standout performance is delivered by the always excellent William Sadler as Detective Wilson. He’s the only person who seems to have worked out what the hell is going on but has been driven to the brink of insanity as the price for solving the case and uncovering the mystery that lurks within 44 Reyburn Drive!

Frankie Faison also deserves a call-out for his performance as William Matheson.

The film’s horror lacks genuine suspense, as Pesce’s staging, along with the Newton Brothers’ musical score, telegraph a lot of the scares well before they’ve been unleashed upon the viewer. Audience familiarity with THE GRUDGE franchise and, more broadly, Horror tropes work against this latest version of the story and prevent it from getting into high gear. It’s left to a last-minute fake-and-switch for the film to leave the barest of lasting impressions upon the viewer.

In a strange release tactic, certain international versions of the film have been reported to have an alternative ending that is far more open-ended and very definitely set the scene for a sequel. 

THE GRUDGE has some good moments of genuine drama, thanks to the solid cast of supporting players. Unfortunately, there’s not much “Horror” on show that hasn’t been seen countless times before; especially in the original Japanese franchise. Therein lies the problem with THE GRUDGE. Its predecessors are so familiar to this film’s target audience that there’s very little Nicolas Pesce can do that changes the outcome of the story and make his version better than what has been previously done.

THE GRUDGE MOVIE (2020) USEFUL LINKS

The Grudge (2020 film) - Wikipedia
​The Grudge (2020) - IMDb
​The Grudge (2020) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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